Integrating University Extension into the Curriculum of the National University

Abstract

This article presents the results of applying a survey instrument to determine a basic diagnosis of opinions with directors and deputy directors of thirty-two university careers in some of the National University’s campuses in 2018. The instrument provides information on the current situation of the integration of extension in the National University’s curriculum from the perspective of the responsible authorities. The results are presented graphically and reflectively throughout the text.
At a theoretical level, some pedagogical challenges are previously interpreted from the existing model at the National University, in the way extension is integrated into the curriculum as part of the comprehensive formation of students according to theoretical approaches of authors such as Gabriela Lostaunau, Andrea Rivero, Boaventura de Sousa, Humberto Tommasino, Agustín Cano, Diego Castro, and Hugo Zemelman.
Finally, some considerations are proposed to include the extension in the university curriculum from the perspective of the statutory purposes of the National University, such as the dialogue of different types of knowledge and interculturality and critical thinking, which are related to the theoretical-political proposals of authors such as Boaventura de Sousa Santos, and Hugo Zemelman, who consider outward extension and inward extension as agents to strengthen the historical subject of change that promotes autonomy in the university-communities relationship, both in regional and territorial processes.